Chapter 16 The Opposite of Safe Sex
The Opposite of Safe Sex
RYDER
While I like calling Billie darlin’, I’m not a fan of being called nicknames myself.
They’re cheesy. Overdone. In most cases, they’re downright cringe-worthy.
But when Billie Wallace calls me baby?
Lord above. My balls contract and my pulse gallops and it hits me like a fucking train that I love nicknames. With an important caveat: Only when she uses them.
She sits on my cock like she means it, rolling her hips so she takes me deeper. My dick is in agony inside her perfect little pussy. She’s fucking tight, her grip on me warm and fierce and somehow soft too.
Billie in a nutshell.
“Wait.” I grab her hips to still them. Close my eyes. Breathe through my nose. “A minute. I need a minute.”
“Ry? Are you okay?” She cups my face in her hand.
I last longer than this.
Much fucking longer. Ain’t like me to come five seconds after I’m inside a girl.
Here I am, though, about to do exactly that. It’s embarrassing. And scary.
The tips of Billie’s bare breasts brush against my chest. Even through my shirt, the feel of her sweet little nipples makes goose bumps break out on my arms.
I have to stay in control. This could get out of hand real fast if I don’t keep my wits about me.
How can I do that, though, when she’s so fun to fuck?
When she’s so real, so generous, so playful?
“Naw, darlin’, I ain’t okay. You…” I smile tightly and shake my head. “It’s never felt this good.”
Her thumb arcs over my cheekbone. “That a bad thing?”
“I don’t—” I suck in a breath through my nose. Billie’s been fearlessly honest tonight. I owe it to her to return the favor. “I hate the idea of disappointing you. If I don’t last as long as I should.”
“Ry.”
“Yeah?”
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes. Hers are soft. Kind. Hair everywhere.
She’s the kind of pretty that makes it hard to breathe. “That’s the problem, Billie. I can’t stop looking.”
“I like that.” She takes my hand and guides it back to her breast. “I like you. No such thing as ‘should’ tonight, okay? Just be who you are, and take what you need.” She grins. “I sure as hell am.”
Aw, hell, because I wasn’t feeling some kind of way about this girl before I got her naked in my truck.
I squeeze her tit. “Brat.”
“You wanna fuck that outta me?” She reaches down and slips her good hand inside my shirt. My abs immediately contract at the feel of her palm gliding over my bare skin.
Shit, now I’m laughing again, even as my cock surges inside her slick heat. When was the last time sex was this fun?
When was the last time I felt so much that I struggled to stay in control?
What if I don’t need to be in control at all?
“Yeah.” I gently wrap my fingers around her neck. I put my other hand on her hip. “Yeah, I do wanna fuck that outta you. I said I’ll handle the rest, so now I’m gonna handle it, yeah?”
“I’m waiting.”
The only word I can think to describe her expression is feral. Her eyes are wet with curiosity. Lips swollen. Tits bouncing as I guide her up. Down.
Back up.
Her pussy flutters. I see stars.
And just like that, I’m lost.
She’s lost.
In losing myself like this—allowing myself to surrender to all these feelings—I feel connected. To the universe. To whom I am and what I want.
I feel connected to Billie.
We’re moving together, rising on a wave of shared breaths.
Sweat breaks out along my scalp and on my neck as I piston my hips upward on a hard, punishing thrust. She presses down at the same time, our bodies making a lewd slapping noise.
She won’t stay still—she can’t—even as I tighten my grip on her throat.
She rides my cock like she means it, and I fuck her like I don’t have everything to lose.
We chase the release we were never meant to share. But now that we’re here, I wonder why the fuck we waited so long.
She yells.
I yell.
Her hand fists in my shirt. Her fingernails dig into my skin. I roll my thumb over her clit just how she likes it. The tightness of our fit, the way her pussy swallows my length again and again—
“You close?” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from coming myself.
In reply, her pussy clamps down on my length.
“Ry.” A shout. A plea. An exuberant declaration of relief.
She comes again, and my chest puffs out a little. I may not last as long as I’d like, but at least I made Billie come twice tonight.
Am I really only gonna make Billie Wallace come twice in my life?
That thought is depressing.
“Do I gotta—you want me to pull out—?”
“Don’t.” Her eyes fly open on a gasp. “Please. I love—the feel of you inside me—”
“Good.” Carefully wrapping my arms around her, I pull her against me and thrust one last time and come. Hard.
I bury my face in her neck and pray like hell I don’t die. Because this, coming inside her—it’s obliterating.
Her trust. The way she lets me hold her.
The way she holds me.
How the fuck am I gonna let this girl go?
I feel the hot seep of my cum fill the condom. There’s a lot of it.
Is it wrong that I’m turned on by the idea of my cum dripping down Billie’s thighs? Because tonight, she’s mine. I want her to know that.
Jesus Christ, what is wrong with me?
If Colt knew—
Yeah, not going there. Not tonight.
We both know we shouldn’t be doing this, which means it’s gotta be a one-time-only thing. Are Billie and I assholes not to tell Colt about it? Maybe.
Or maybe we’re doing the right thing. People hook up all the time. As long as Billie and I are honest with each other, no one’s going to get hurt.
You sure about that?
She’s curled up on my chest, breathing hard. I run a hand down her naked back, marveling at how soft her skin is.
My truck smells like sex.
Sex and sweet peaches.
She shifts, lifting her head to kiss the underside of my jaw. “Hi.”
“How’re you feeling?” I murmur into her hair. “Any pain?”
“No pain. I feel…” She sighs, a happy sound. “Like there’s definitely no brat left in me.”
I burst out laughing. “My job here is done.”
“Where the hell do you get the energy? I’m honestly asking because I feel like you work so hard all day long…”
My chest tightens. “I get by. And I like knowing my people are safe.”
“Safe sex is good sex.”
“This was good sex.”
“Excellent.”
She’s quiet as she traces her fingertips over my shirt. I’m smoothing her hair down her back now.
I wanna take her home so bad my teeth ache.
But we can’t do this again. One time only, remember? The danger of blurred lines and all that shit. But God, the thought of letting her go, putting her clothes on, taking her home—it feels wrong.
I don’t want my job to be done.
Which makes absolutely no sense. Neither does fucking your best friend’s baby sister, though, so I guess I wasn’t an arbiter of good sense to begin with.
“Darlin’.”
“Yeah?” Her voice is sleepy.
Aw, Billie, you got no idea how bad I want to take you home. Fuck you again and again. Then, when we’re too tired to keep going, I’d watch you fall asleep in my bed.
I never invite women to sleep at my place. Told myself it’s because I wouldn’t be able to sleep next to someone else. People snore. They toss and turn.
The magic dissipates real fast when you wake up drooling next to someone else who’s drooling too.
Now I’m wondering if I’d sleep better with someone next to me. Sure as hell not sleeping great alone, am I? And I weirdly like the idea of Billie drooling on my pillow. Means she’d feel totally at ease at my place. Comfortable.
At home.
What the fuck is happening to me right now?
“Much as I want to hold you like this all night, I don’t want you getting a UTI. Can I clean us up real quick?”
She moans, turning her head. “Yes. But please don’t make it quick.”
“Too late.” I chuckle. “Sorry, bad joke.”
“You weren’t too quick, and you didn’t disappoint me, you know.” She sits up and looks at me. “Really, I think you just made every other man seem disappointing in comparison.”
My heart has wings. That image alone should send me running for the hills. I don’t do mushy.
Here I am, though, feeling real fucking mushy. I don’t hate it.
“I’m not satisfied unless it’s a job well done.”
She smiles, digging her teeth into her bottom lip. “It was very well done.”
Colt would hate that we’re sneaking behind his back like this, though, wouldn’t he?
Only if I didn’t treat Billie right. I think about what Duke said back at the Rattler—that I wouldn’t know if I could treat her the way she deserves to be treated until I tried.
Now is my chance to try. But is treating her right giving in to the mushiness? Or is it keeping boundaries clear?
I find some napkins in my glove compartment—Colt and Sawyer have trained me to always keep some handy in the car—and after I take care of the condom, I put Billie on her back on the front seat.
Peeling off her ridiculously tiny underwear, I part her knees and hiss when I see her pussy. In the red and green lights of the dashboard, she looks slick, swollen. Pink.
I gently run my fingers over the birthmark on her thigh. “This is cute.”
“You’re cute.”
My dick perks right the fuck back up. That’s a new record for recovery.
“Really, Billie, you’re so pretty here.” I gently wipe her down. The condom took care of most of the mess, but it can’t hurt to pay attention to detail.
Her breath catches. “Thank you.”
“You know I wanna go for round two, right?”
She nods, doing that thing where she bites her lip. “I want that too.”
“Best if we call it a night, though. It’s late. And I don’t want you hurtin’ too bad tomorrow.”
Her eyes glimmer with disappointment. “The hurt feels good, Ry.”
I hang my head. “You gotta listen when I ask you to stop right now.”
“I’ll stop.” She reaches up and digs her fingers into my hair. “I know we’re friends. Only friends. And friends don’t…”
I laugh. “Do anything we just did?”
Her face creases into a smile. “Exactly.”
It kills me to push her knees back together and offer her my hand. Kills me to pull her up to sit. Help her back into her shirt. Watch her buckle in.
My thoughts, feelings—they’re a jumble of, This is so right, and, I’m doing something wrong. I can’t tell up from down.
My hand shakes as I tuck her panties into my other front pocket—the one without Dad’s pocketknife in it.
“Those belong to me, you know.” Billie cuts me a hot look.
I start the truck. “They’re mine now.”
It’s wrong that I’m stealing her panties. It also doesn’t feel right not to have some token of the best sex of my life, especially considering I’ll never have sex with this woman again.
You wouldn’t know I had Billie yelling my name minutes ago by the way she sits quietly and looks out the window on the drive back to her place. Legs crossed, the hand of her good arm tucked between her thighs.
Thankfully her apartment is on the opposite side of the ranch from Colt’s house, so there’s very little risk of him catching us. Just the fact that I’m worried about that makes me feel a stab of guilt, though.
Sneaking around sucks. It’s for teenagers and cowards.
Last time. This won’t happen again. Everyone makes mistakes.
Only making Billie come doesn’t feel like a mistake.
Instead, it feels like a revelation. Allowing myself to plug into my feelings, my body, my thoughts like she always does—like I just did when I was inside her—it didn’t kill me.
It didn’t change how Billie felt about me. She wasn’t grossed out or turned off. In fact, she seemed pretty damn turned on by my vulnerability. I love being able to talk to her about how weird and wild and awesome tonight has been.
I love not having to tell myself to numb, ignore, deflect. Makes me realize how exhausted I am by my attempts to outrun my feelings. My desires.
I put the truck in park outside her house and cut the ignition.
“I’ll walk you up.” I unbuckle my seat belt.
Billie just laughs as she opens her door. “Please don’t. I can only handle so many mixed signals in one night.”
“You’re not walking alone in the dark.”
“The door is right there.” She gestures to the windshield. “It’s, like, five steps away.”
I grab the door handle. “Don’t care.”
When I hustle around the truck and open her door, I don’t miss the way she flashes me a glimpse of her pussy as she takes my hand and climbs down.
“Do me a favor.” I don’t let go of her hand.
She doesn’t let go of mine either. “Yeah?”
“Don’t ever wear that skirt in public again.”
Her laugh is high and light, and I have the insane thought that it’d be the best job in the world making her laugh like that over and over again for the rest of our lives.
Quit while you’re ahead.
“I’ll consider it if you give me my underwear back. That’s my cutest pair.”
We stop at her door.
We’re still holding hands. The only girls I’ve ever held hands with have been Ella and June. And Mom, of course.
“No deal.”
She squeezes my hand, digging her teeth into her bottom lip. “We’ll have to agree to disagree, then.”
I can’t look away from her eyes. They glimmer in the light of the moon.
“You’re gonna be sore. Take it easy tomorrow, yeah?”
She scoffs, finally dropping my hand to grab the doorknob. “You’re wild.”
“What does that mean?” I curl one hand around my nape and shove the other in my front pocket in an attempt not to reach for her.
“You claim you don’t wanna blur any lines, but then you go and say sweet shit like that.”
See? It’s so easy to talk about hard shit with Billie. I don’t have a solution, but she’s also not asking for one. We’re swimming in this weirdness together, and neither of us is pretending like we know what happens next.
You know what has to happen.
I scoff. “Just because I’m a mess don’t mean I can’t be sweet too.”
“Stop using the whole ‘oh, poor me, I’m such a mess’ excuse. You’re better than that.” She opens the door.
“Just like you’re better than Xylophone.”
She’s laughing again. “That’s not his name.”
“Don’t care.”
Her eyes flick to my mouth. The urge to grab her and toss her over my shoulder—gently, of course—and bring her back to my place is so strong it makes me sick to my stomach.
If we start up again, we’ll never stop.
“This was fucked up,” she says. “Thanks.”
Now I’m the one laughing. “Just doing the Lord’s work. I got you home safe, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“And we’re not telling Colt.”
“No.”
“Not sure if that’s the right call, but if it’s what you want…”
She looks at me. Her eyes are full. Wet. I want you.
At least that’s what I imagine she’d say if she opened her mouth.
Instead, she nods. “Yeah. It’s better this way.”
“Right.”
“Yup.” She sucks in a breath. “Welp, goodnight, I guess.”
“Night, Billie.”